Digital Coupons Speak Up In The Social Media Conversation

Coupons.com is First to Enable Brand Marketers to Let Consumers Share Coupons with a Single Click with Fans, Friends and Followers via Facebook, Twitter and Buzz in a Controlled Way

Mountain View, CA – April 20, 2010 – Thanks to Coupons.com, coupons are speaking up in the social media conversation. The company announced that starting today brand marketers can allow consumers one-click sharing of their digital coupons with fans, friends and followers in social networks, including Facebook®, Twitter® and Buzz®. As a result, marketers can encourage the sharing of coupons in potentially-viral social networks, while still implementing and managing print limits for each coupon based on budget requirements. Coupons.com, the leader in digital coupons, will showcase the industry-first in a presentation later today at the ad:tech conference in San Francisco.

“With today’s announcement, we are injecting coupons directly into the social media conversation, allowing consumers to easily share coupons with their social networks and allowing brands to engage in social media in a controlled and measurable way,” said Steven Boal, CEO of Coupons.com.

In a recent report by Razorfish, the number one reason consumers followed a brand on Twitter or “friended” a brand on Facebook or MySpace was access to exclusive deals or offers.† In the case of Twitter, 43.5 percent of respondents said exclusive deals or offers was the primary reason they followed a brand, which is almost double the number of respondents who said the primary reason they followed a brand was because they were current customers (23.5 percent). In addition, digital coupons can provide redemption data to directly measure effectiveness of social media investments.

Today, Coupons.com is making a big step forward by enabling marketers to capitalize on this trend by extending their digital coupon promotions and allowing consumers to very easily share coupons with their fans, friends and followers. Consumers simply click the familiar Facebook, Buzz or Twitter icons after they have printed a coupon to automatically post the coupon to their Facebook Wall, add to Buzz, or send a Tweet. Others, then, can click to get the coupon for themselves, post comments about it, share it, etc. The coupon can be printed until the print-limit (defined by the brand) is reached.

Litehouse® Foods, the maker of the popular Litehouse® dressings, dips and sauces, will be among the first to launch the new social media sharing capability as part of their existing digital coupon campaign.

“A coupon promotion is one thing manufacturers do not want to go viral unless you have an unlimited budget, because it costs money every time a coupon is redeemed. But at the same time, every company wants to leverage the power of social media to promote their brand,” said Roxie Lowther, director of marketing media at Litehouse® Foods. “Coupons.com is giving us the best of both worlds: we can engage in social media to support our brand and rely on distribution controls to support our budgets.”

Steven Boal will showcase the new capability at the ad:tech conference later today in a session titled Promotions, Coupons and Social Media, which begins at 4 pm at San Francisco’s Moscone Center.

Demo: Consumer Experience
Coupons.com has created a demo using a mock coupon to illustrate the consumer experience. The demo is available at: http://b.coupons.com/z.asp.

1. The initial page of the demo is what consumers see when they have selected a coupon and are ready to print.

2. When “Print Coupons” is clicked, the coupon is sent to the user’s default printer. Consumers then see a Thank You and at the bottom of the page they will see the option to Send Offers using the Facebook, Twitter and Buzz icons.